AU. Nine years after becoming a Sith, Darth Vader hears of a supposed Jedi on Tatooine calling himself Anakin Skywalker. He investigates, and finds much, much more than he would have imagined. COMPLETE

Disclaimer: All characters, places, etc. (excepting Ray
Jopaan, who is mine) belong to George Lucas and Lucasfilm. No money is being made and no copyright
infringement is intended.

Author's notes: This was inspired by a challenge found at
the Luke/Vader Yahoo!Group and website, about Luke and Vader hearing of a man
calling himself Anakin Skywalker and investigating. I've got a couple sequels planned, though whether I'll manage to
write them is anyone's guess. Thank you
to thistlerose and Barbara for betaing.

--

Like many plans, Ray Jopaan's seemed brilliant at
first.

Although just a padawan when the Jedi Purges began, and then
a padawan on the run five years into Emperor Palpatine's New Order, Ray had
been nearly killed by Darth Vader and presumed dead, but had managed to pull
himself together with a healing trance.
And four years after that day, four years after an angry red lightsaber
had just barely missed his heart, he'd finally done it. He found the hiding place of one of the last
remaining Jedi Masters, and finally would be able to finish his training.

But when he finally set down on Tatooine's surface, and
looked around Mos Eisley Spaceport with its dirty buildings, dirty streets,
dirty people, and two hot suns pounding midday heat against all of them, he
wondered what Master Obi-Wan Kenobi had been thinking, going to ground in a
place like this. How could he stand
it? Ray remembered Master Kenobi,
remembered him looking comfortable in the halls of the Senate building and the
upper echelons of Coruscant, striding around as if he didn't even notice its
elegance and beauty. How could he stand
living on this nothing, this dustbowl of a planet, surrounded by criminals,
murderers, and slavers?

A cloud of dust blew in front of Ray's face, and he
coughed. Well, it didn't matter why
Master Kenobi had chosen to hide here, because here he was, and here was where
Ray would find him. Now to find a room
to stay, and to start putting his plan in motion.

--

There was an upwelling in the Force, a glorious song of potential
so strong that it disturbed Darth Vader's meditation aboard his flagship,
currently traveling through the Outer Rim.
Vader snapped open his eyes, and then narrowed them.

There was a disturbance in the Force. Something was going to happen. Nothing had happened yet, but something would. And this something was bound up in the Light
Side of the Force—the way the knowledge thrummed and sang beneath his
consciousness told him that. Only the
Light Side sang to its users, bright and bubbling over with warmth, joyously
proclaiming itself. The Dark was much
too smart for that, for giving itself away.
It whispered, cool and commanding, until Vader found himself doing its
bidding almost unconsciously.

But there was Darkness in this potential as well,
Vader realized, listening more closely to that song in the Force and
recognizing a jarring note, as if the singing voice had faltered. The Light was there, almost overwhelming,
but Darkness threaded itself through, just waiting to grow strong enough to
wrap itself around the throat that sang the song and tighten, cutting off the
voice forever. And it was Vader's
duty—and his pleasure—as a Dark Lord of the Sith to help it do just that.

Eyes closed again, Vader resumed his meditation, this time
seeking the Force for that something he'd felt earlier. Images flashed in front of his eyes and
passed away almost too quickly to be seen properly—Vader thought he saw his
former self at nine years old, surrounded by the sands of his home planet, but
the image blew away and was replaced by a red lightsaber hurtling towards an
unprotected neck, guided by a black-gloved hand. And then that image, too, was replaced, by something familiar and
hated. It stayed in front of his eyes,
Tatooine as seen from orbit, and suddenly Vader knew/knew, that the
upwelling in the Force came from there.

It figured that it would be there, Vader thought, as he
brought himself out of the meditation.
There, where both his paths had begun, Light and Dark, where a crucial
podrace was won and a village of Tuskens slaughtered. Something powerful was again stirring on Tatooine…and he would
see exactly what it was.

--

Luke Skywalker had just finished his first of the morning's chores,
picking mushrooms at the vaporators, when he heard his aunt calling him.

"Coming, Aunt Beru!" he yelled back, and picked up his pace
until he reached the homestead, with his aunt standing at the door.

"Good morning, Luke," Beru said with a gentle smile. "I've got to go shopping in Anchorhead
today. Once you've put the mushrooms
away, would you like to come with me?"

Luke grinned and nodded in answer, and ran inside to leave
the mushrooms in the kitchen.
Anchorhead! It wasn't much, Luke
knew, just a small, sleepy town, but it was going to save his day from the
complete monotony that was life on a moisture farm.

Beru drove the speeder as Luke kicked his heels in the
passenger seat. He wanted to be the one
driving, because he knew he could, that a lack of formal lessons on
driving a landspeeder couldn't stop him.
He knew he could drive a landspeeder, even an airspeeder, or a
starfighter. He didn't know how he
knew, but he did, just as surely as he knew that Uncle Owen was lying when he
said Luke's father had been a navigator on a space freighter, and that the
crazy old hermit Ben Kenobi was hiding something important.

But it wasn't Luke behind the wheel of the speeder; it was
Beru, whose feet could reach the pedals.
Luke sighed in momentary depression as his own body, small for its nine
years of age, defeated his dreams, but then he brightened up. He wasn't doing boring chores on the farm,
and he wasn't being yelled at by Uncle Owen.
He was going to Anchorhead, and he might see Biggs, and they could run
around and annoy Fixer and pretend to be Jedi Knights out to save the galaxy.

Luke grinned to himself, and looked down at his hands. Hands that were already rough and brown and
calloused from working on a farm, hands with small, broken fingernails, hands
that had been lightly slapped whenever Uncle Owen discovered him daydreaming
instead of working. Hands that would
someday pilot a starfighter across the galaxy, that would rescue princesses
from evil black-caped men who wanted to kill them, that would someday hold a
Jedi Knight's lightsaber for real. And
he knew those things would happen, because something about those dreams sang to
him whenever he thought about them. He
just knew.

But Luke had time, and the dreams could wait. After all, Luke told himself, still
grinning, it would look pretty funny if a boy too small to drive a landspeeder
rescued a princess.

--

With a flourish, Ray signed the name Anakin Skywalker
to the datapad provided by the Anchorhead hotel manager. Then, carefully pulling back his cloak so
that the lightsaber clipped to his belt was visible to the bored man seated at
the desk, he bent down and picked up his luggage. When he stood up again, he let his eyes wander over the manager,
whose gaze was fixed on the lightsaber.
A smirk pulling at his lips, Ray headed towards the room he'd been
assigned.

Once there, he flopped on the bed, leaving his luggage at
the door. The room wasn't much, but it
was clean, which was almost more than he was expecting, given what he had seen
of Tatooine so far. He still didn't
know what had prompted Obi-Wan Kenobi to make it his new home, but Ray supposed
he would ask Master Kenobi that when they met.

And they would meet—Ray was sure of it. He felt the Force guiding him to this little
nothing town in the middle of nowhere, and what would the Force be guiding him
to if not Master Kenobi? And if that
hotel manager talked about a man with a lightsaber by the name of Anakin
Skywalker, who was Master Kenobi's last padawan, and who was simply missing,
not confirmed as dead…Kenobi would come.
What the unknown name of Ray Jopaan wouldn't do, the beloved name of
Anakin Skywalker would. Master Kenobi
would seek out the man that even Ray, who'd been too busy with his own master
to talk to either Kenobi or Skywalker, could see he loved like a little
brother. And then Ray could finish his
training.

Smiling at the thought of being fully trained, then going
back out into the galaxy to train more Jedi, enough to defeat Palpatine and his
lapdog Vader, Ray drifted off to sleep.

--

"My lord?"

Darth Vader did not turn around. "Yes, Captain Ozzel?"

Vader could hear the other man swallow in apprehension. "My lord, we've received a transmission from
the planet Tatooine. A hotel manager in
the small town of Anchorhead reports that a man bearing a lightsaber checked
into a room there under the name Anakin Skywalker. They are presuming him a Jedi, and wish to know what to do."

Vader was silent for a moment, then, "Do not let the man
leave the planet," he said abruptly.
"We are approaching Tatooine, are we not?"

"Yes, my lord. We
shall arrive there in approximately twelve hours," the nervous captain replied.

"Very good. Begin
readying my TIE fighter when we get closer—I shall take care of this Jedi
myself. Dismissed, Captain."

Without waiting for a reply, Vader strode away, heading for
his quarters. Anakin Skywalker! Of all names, why did this supposed Jedi
choose that one? And Tatooine…Tatooine,
where his meditations lately had been focusing. Something was going to happen on Tatooine, Vader was sure of it,
and that whatever it was that was happening there, this Jedi was part of it.

--

Something in the Force was thrumming. Ray could feel it, and he immediately woke
up from his nap. Almost without
realizing it, he jumped up and started shoving his feet into his boots, pulling
his shirt over his head, clipping his lightsaber to his belt, and then swinging
the hooded cloak over his shoulders.

Something was coming, the Force told him. Something was in Anchorhead, and it was
getting closer. Ray closed his eyes for
a moment and reached out—and touched a bright presence in the Force, so bright
it almost blinded his mental eyes. It
pulsed with energy, fairly crackling with it, and Ray could feel his excitement
growing as he slipped out of the Force's flow and opened his eyes.

So much power, so much Light Force power…it could only be
Master Kenobi. And if Kenobi was here
in Anchorhead, coming closer and closer, then Ray's plan was working. Ray suddenly laughed out loud in sheer and
utter delight. It was working! Soon Master Kenobi would be here and he
would train Ray and together they would get rid of Vader and Palpatine and
revive the Jedi Order.

Ray could see the events unfolding in his mind, see Obi-Wan
Kenobi's duel with Vader, the look on Palpatine's face as he realized he was
going to die. He could see it. It would happen. Ray strode out of the hotel, not even noticing the fear etched on
the face of the manager, sitting behind his desk in the lobby. That bright presence was getting closer, and
Ray followed its trail in his mind, dodging people and turning corners.

Then it was right in front of him, getting closer and
closer, and Ray walked faster in anticipation of finally seeing Master
Kenobi—and abruptly fell backwards when a young, blond-haired boy collided with
him.

--

Luke looked up at the brown-haired man he'd just run into,
rubbing his head. "Sorry about that,"
he offered, springing up immediately. "I
didn't mean to run into you, I was just trying to catch my friend." Beyond them, Biggs had stopped, looking at
them curiously.

"Oooof," the man groaned, sitting up and rubbing the back of
his head. "What, did your friend steal
something from you? That why you were
in such a hurry you couldn't look where you were going?"

Luke blinked. "No,
we were just playing Tag," he said.
"Besides, I don't think you were looking where you were going either!"

Luke glared at him, and waited for the man to angrily deny
it because none of the adults /he/ knew would have admitted to something like
not looking where they were going. But,
unexpectedly, the man laughed. "Guess I
wasn't, kid," the man said affably. "So
I'm sorry too. I was just looking for
someone."

Luke stepped back, and the man stood up. "Who?" Luke asked curiously, the game
forgotten for the moment. "Maybe I know
them."

The man shrugged. "I
don't know if you would, but…his name's Obi-Wan Kenobi. I thought he was in this town, but…" the man
looked at him, sharply, and Luke wondered what he was seeing, "…I might have
been mistaken. I don't suppose you know
him?"

Luke looked thoughtful for a moment. "Um, I know a Ben Kenobi," he said
hesitantly. "He lives out in the
Jundland Wastes. Maybe he's related to
this Obi-Wan?"

Luke abruptly sat down again, interrupting the stranger. His eyes were wide and his legs wouldn't
hold him, and he must be going insane because he just thought he heard the
stranger identify himself as Anakin Skywalker and that was impossible
because Anakin Skywalker was the name of his father and he was dead. He was.
Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru said he was, and they would tell Luke if he
really was alive. It was impossible.

But then, Luke had always known that his aunt and uncle
weren't telling the whole truth about his father…

Confusion roaring around his mind, Luke sat in the dust of
the street and tried not to look as if his world had just been turned upside
down.

--

Ray stopped talking when the boy suddenly sat down in the middle
of the street, looking dazed and as if his legs wouldn't support him. The woman—Beru, the boy called her?—looked
at him with wide, suspicious eyes.

"Luke," she said quietly, and the boy scrambled up again,
"go play with Biggs."

The boy protested, shooting a glance at Ray, "But, Aunt
Beru—"

"Now!" she snapped, and the boy, with one final look at Ray,
reluctantly trudged off to join his friend.

"Ma'am, I—" Ray started, but the woman spoke right over him.

"You aren't Anakin Skywalker," she said, still quietly, as
if she didn't want anyone to hear what she was saying. "Who are you, what are you doing here, and
why are you claiming that name?"

Ray felt a sudden flash of panic. How did this woman know?
A middle-aged woman in the middle of nowhere on a backwater planet in
the Outer Rim—how could she know Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight?

But that didn't matter right now. This woman, whoever she was, spoke about Obi-Wan Kenobi as if she
knew where he was, so maybe she would take him there. He had to take that chance—he needed this training.

"Not in the middle of the street," he muttered, and looked
around for a suitable place to talk.
And there one was, an abandoned awning near the mouth of an alley. Ray stretched out his senses in the Force
and detected no listeners, so he made his way there. After a moment's hesitation, a last glance at where the boy was
back to chasing his friend, the woman followed him.

--

As soon as Aunt Beru wasn't looking, Luke stopped in his
tracks, ignoring his other friends still playing, not even pretending to care
about the game anymore. Biggs likewise
stopped, and made his way back to where his friend was standing, now that it
was obvious that Luke wasn't going to play.

"…Luke?" Biggs asked cautiously, following Luke's gaze to
where his aunt was talking to the stranger.
"What's going on?"

"That man," Luke said quietly, not moving his head at
all. "He said his name was Anakin
Skywalker."

Biggs took a moment to absorb that, and then asked, "So you think
he's your father? He doesn't look much
like you."

Luke shook his head, but didn't look away. "Maybe I take after my mother or something,
I don't know. It's just…" He struggled,
trying to put in words what he had felt.
"There's something about him, something familiar. I don't know what it is, but I know it's
there."

Biggs looked dubious.
"I dunno, Luke," he said. "I
mean, I know you and your feelings, and how you're usually right about
them. But your aunt and uncle told you
your dad was dead, and now this guy just appears out of nowhere, and doesn't
look like he even knows who you are."

Luke shot an angry glance at his best friend. "So what, are you saying he's an
imposter? Why would someone else be
using the name of a dead space freighter navigator?" Luke narrowed his eyes, conveniently forgetting that he never
thought his father really was a navigator, regardless of what his uncle
said. "I'm going over there," he
announced. "I want to hear what they're
saying."

And before Biggs could make any move to stop him, Luke
strode away towards his aunt and his supposed father, hiding himself behind
some crates not far from them. With a
sigh, Biggs followed.

--

Once they were away from the traffic in the middle of the
street, the woman folded her arms over her chest in an unspoken question of
'Well?'

Ray swallowed—the woman looked so much like one of the
Masters he'd had as a youngling whenever she caught someone in an act of
mischief. But he was an adult now, and
trying—no, doing—something important, and he would not let her
intimidate him. "First of all, I'd like
to know how you knew I'm not really Anakin Skywalker." He crossed his own arms in a conscious imitation
of the woman.

The woman raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the wall. "Did you know that Tatooine is Anakin's home
planet?" she asked conversationally.
Ray felt his eyes widen; no, he'd not known that. "My husband is his step-brother," she
continued. "You look nothing like
him. Now, who are you really?"

Ray sighed, and slumped against the wall. He hadn't expected to meet someone who'd
actually /known/ Anakin Skywalker, hadn't expected his disguise to be
challenged so soon, but his plan was still salvageable. He just had to convince this woman to lead
him to Master Kenobi, and he could tell the truth for that.

"My name is Ray Jopaan," he began, "and I was a Jedi padawan
nine years ago when the Purges began.
My Master was killed by Darth Vader, but I managed to survive, and since
then I've been on the run, looking for someone who could complete my training
so I can confront Darth Vader again, this time as a full Jedi. I heard rumors that Master Obi-Wan Kenobi
was living on this planet, so I came here to look for him." Ray shrugged. "I figured that if I took the name Anakin Skywalker, who was his
last padawan, and spread it around, then he'd come looking for me, and help me
finish my training."

Then from behind him he heard a loud crashing sound, and Ray
whirled around with a hand on his lightsaber…to face two boys in a pile of
overturned crates. One of them was the
boy he'd run into earlier, who'd had such an extreme reaction when he heard the
name Ray was using. They'd obviously
been eavesdropping on the conversation, and Ray wondered for a moment how he'd
not detected them so close, especially when given the massive Force presence
the boy had. He'd just decided that it
had probably been because neither boy was a threat when the woman now standing
behind him spoke.

"Luke," she sighed, "what have I told you about
eavesdropping?"

The boy and his friend clambered to their feet and slouched
closer. "Not to do it, Aunt Beru," the
boy replied dejectedly. He and his
friend kept looking at the ground, the very picture of boys awaiting punishment
they knew they deserved.

"Right," his aunt said severely. "Now, what did you overhear?"

Now the boy looked up, his eyes wide. "I heard him—" he pointed to Ray, "—say that
he wasn't my father, and that he's a Jedi padawan looking for Obi-Wan Kenobi, and
that my father was Obi-Wan Kenobi's padawan."
The boy looked at his aunt, clasping his hands so tightly that the
knuckles were white. "Aunt Beru, was my
father a Jedi?"

Ray was completely and utterly confused. Jedi didn't have children. They just didn't. It was against the Code!
So why did this kid think…. Ray shook his head, trying to clear it. This situation was impossible. It was supposed to be so simple…go in, find
Master Kenobi, get trained, and kill Darth Vader and the Emperor. Now there were Force-strong boys and women
who knew more than they should and Jedi with children…when had things become so
complex?

Ray's head was spinning, and he leaned it against the
wall. Suddenly it was hotter than
usual, even for this Force-forsaken desert planet. Except it wasn't Force-forsaken—Anakin Skywalker had come from
it. Anakin, who was such a powerful Jedi Knight, and now there was this boy,
Anakin's son, whose very presence in the Force sang with power.

'Calm,' he told himself.
'Calm, calm, calm.' There is
no emotion, there is peace. There is no
ignorance, there is knowledge. As
he recited the Code to himself, he could see the woman speaking quietly with
the other boy, and the other boy nodding, touching the first—/Anakin
Skywalker's son/—briefly on the shoulder, and then running off.

--

Luke's mind was similarly spinning. His entire world had been turned upside down
in the space of ten minutes. First his
father had miraculously been found, then discovered to be a fake, and then
discovered to have been a real life Jedi Knight! Luke knew he hadn't been just a navigator, he knew
it, but a Jedi…

Then Aunt Beru was speaking to both of them, Luke and the
stranger—Ray Jopaan. "Come," she was
saying. "I think we need to all go
speak to Master Kenobi."

Almost in a daze, Luke walked with the other two to the
clear lot where the speeder was waiting.
Aunt Beru dumped her groceries in the front seat, and /looked/ at Luke
and Ray until they both got in the back.
Then they left, and even through Luke's own confusion, he could tell
that Aunt Beru was nervous. He wondered
what she was so nervous about.

And then they were out in the desert, suns beating down on
them mercilessly. Tatoo I was almost at
its zenith, and Tatoo II wasn't far behind.
Luke closed his eyes and leaned his head against the side of the
speeder, letting the air rushing past him cool him down and wipe the sweat off
his brow.

"So I'm guessing your Ben Kenobi is the same Obi-Wan Kenobi
that I'm looking for?" a voice said quietly from right beside him, and Luke
angled his head to look at the speaker.

"I s'pose," he answered, his forehead furrowing in
thought. "Aunt Beru said we're going to
see Obi-Wan, and we're headed out towards where Ben lives. So I guess they could be the same person."

"They are," Aunt Beru called from the front seat. "When he brought you to us, Luke, Obi-Wan
told Owen and me that he was going to take the name Ben, and that we should
always refer to him by that name."

Luke blinked in surprise.
"He brought me to you?" he exclaimed. "But I thought…" Actually, he hadn't thought about it, Luke
realized with a start. Beyond being
told that his parents were dead and that was why he was with his aunt and
uncle, he hadn't thought about how he'd actually came to live with his family.

Beru sighed, loud enough that Luke could hear it in the
back. "Now that you know part of the
story…you'll be told more. I promise
you that, Luke." She sighed again. "Once we meet Obi-Wan, and I tell him what
happened today…we'll tell you more."

--

Vader sat in his meditation room in his quarters, his eyes
closed behind the mask, the Dark Side of the Force rushing through his body and
filling his veins with a cold power.
Its whisper to him reminded him of cool nights on Tatooine, but Vader
welcomed the cold—ever since that day nine years ago when Obi-Wan Kenobi left
him to burn in the lava, his skin felt too warm for him. The Dark Side refreshed him.

He sank deeper into his meditation…and saw again the boy
he'd seen the first time the Force had brought his attention to Tatooine, such
a short time ago. At first he thought
it was himself when he was younger, but there were differences—the curve of his
mouth, the shape of his nose, the pattern of freckles on his cheeks. Subtle differences, but differences
nonetheless. This boy was not a young
Anakin Skywalker, but he was important.
Vader wouldn't be seeing him so often if he weren't.

Then he felt something requiring his attention, and
reluctantly let go of the trance. He
stepped out of the meditation room and strode to the bridge, coming to a stop
next to Captain Ozzel.

"My lord, we are now orbiting Tatooine," the captain said,
gesturing towards the viewscreen where the desert planet hovered. "Your TIE fighter is prepared, unless you
would like to take a shuttle with some stormtroopers—"

Vader held up a hand, cutting the man off. "That will not be necessary, Captain," he
rumbled. "Stormtroopers will not be
needed, and I do not foresee this taking long."

There was a man, maybe fifty years old, standing at the edge
of the Jundland Wastes. Ray narrowed
his eyes and thought for a moment the man was a mirage, because why would
someone just be standing out in the open in the middle of a desert?

Unless he was waiting for someone. Ray's heart skipped a beat as he realized that the man wasn't a
mirage, and that, despite not having seen him for a decade, he recognized
him. There was a lot more white in
ginger hair, and his face had a lot more lines, but he was still recognizable
as the Jedi Master Obi-Wan Kenobi.

"Beru," he said, as Beru pulled the speeder to a stop right
alongside him. "And Luke—it's nice to
see you, young man." Luke grinned. Obi-Wan raised an eyebrow at the third
person in the speeder. "And who is
this?"

"I—yes." Ray
blinked. Master Kenobi recognized
him? He'd never thought he was that
memorable. "But my Master died nine
years ago, in the Temple. I've been on
the run, looking for someone to complete my training, and then I heard rumors
of you on this planet, and thought you might finish it."

"And you just happened to meet Beru Lars, one of the only
two people on this planet who knew that Obi-Wan Kenobi and Ben Kenobi were the
same person," Obi-Wan said, with a heavy amount of irony. "Well, the Force works in mysterious
ways. But Beru," he turned to face her,
"why is…" He gestured towards Luke.

"Why is Luke here?" Beru finished, voice grave. "He's the one who found Jedi Jopaan, not
me."

Beru sighed. "Jedi
Jopaan thought that his own name wouldn't attract your attention, so…" she
swallowed, "he used Anakin's. Luke
knows that his father was a Jedi."

Obi-Wan flinched in surprise, and he swung around to face
Ray again with astonishing speed. "You
used the name Anakin Skywalker?" he asked urgently, and taken aback, Ray
nodded. "How many people knew you by
that name?"

"I…" Ray thought for a moment. "Just Luke there, his friend, and Mrs. Lars, though they all know
I'm really not. I didn't really use the
name all that long before finding Luke…. Oh, except for when I checked into a
hotel. I used the name Anakin Skywalker
then."

"Sithspit!" Obi-Wan swore, closing his eyes and rubbing his
forehead. "Well, what's done is
done. Beru, I'll need to talk to you
and Owen. Do you mind if I go with you
back to the homestead?"

Without a word, Beru grabbed her groceries and shoved them
in the backseat with Luke and Ray, making room for Obi-Wan, who immediately
took it. Ray looked between the two for
a moment, wondering what was so important about some hotel manager thinking
Anakin Skywalker was on Tatooine.

"Ah, Master Kenobi?" Ray asked hesitantly, as Beru swung the
speeder around and they started off across the sands again. "What's so important about Anakin
Skywalker?"

Obi-Wan turned his head back to face him, and looked him
hard in the eye. "Anakin Skywalker is
/not/ an unknown Jedi in this galaxy," he said shortly. Ray almost stopped breathing as he felt the
fear coming off of Obi-Wan—a Jedi Master!—in waves. "If that hotel manager let anyone know…we might be dealing with
Darth Vader soon."

Beru gave out a little moan, though she continued driving
steadily. And Ray sat back against his
seat, completely understanding why Obi-Wan was afraid. He wasn't ready to face Vader yet, not
/yet, not after having gotten no farther in his training since Vader had
almost killed him.

This plan, far from being as brilliant as he'd first
thought, was quickly turning into a disaster.

--

The suns climbed higher and higher overhead as the speeder
raced back to the homestead, and Luke was confused. After all the revelations of the day, he wasn't sure what was
really true about his life, and what was a lie. His father hadn't been a navigator, he'd been a Jedi Knight, and
a famous one at that. Ben Kenobi was
really Obi-Wan Kenobi, and a Jedi Master instead of a crazy old hermit. And Obi-Wan said that Darth Vader might be
coming…Luke shivered, despite the heat of the suns pounding down on him. He'd heard things about Darth Vader,
horrible, scary things about how he was always killing people and didn't know
what mercy was, and the last thing Luke wanted was to meet Darth Vader.

But at the same time, he knew something was strange
here. Why did Obi-Wan have to talk to
his aunt and uncle if Vader was coming?
Luke didn't think they were Jedi too. He'd lived with them for the past nine years, and they didn't
feel like Jedi, not the way that Obi-Wan and Ray Jopaan did. And Uncle Owen wasn't a big man in
Anchorhead and Mos Eisley the way that Huff Darklighter, Biggs's dad, was. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru were just moisture
farmers trying to make a living in the middle of a desert. What was special about them?

"I know you have questions, Luke," Obi-Wan said, turning
around in the front seat to look at Luke, interrupting his thoughts. Luke jumped, not having expected Obi-Wan to
say anything to him, and Obi-Wan smiled.
"But don't worry," Obi-Wan continued.
"I assure you, you'll get some answers when we get to your home and can
talk to your uncle too."

Luke nodded, but questions were still bouncing around his
mind. Something was missing here. It was like a jigsaw puzzle with the center
pieces gone, the biggest and most important part of the picture
incomplete. He now knew his father and
Obi-Wan had been Jedi, and that was important, but it wasn't the heart of the
puzzle. There was something more.

"Beru!" a voice shouted, and Luke blinked and came out of
his thoughts. Time and the desert must
have flown by, because they were back at the homestead, and Uncle Owen was
standing in front of the speeder, glaring at Obi-Wan Kenobi. "What's he doing here?" Owen growled,
obviously speaking to Aunt Beru but not taking his eyes off Obi-Wan.

"Owen—" Obi-Wan began, but Owen interrupted him.

"I thought I told you not to come around here! And Beru," he turned to face her, "you brought
him here! What about…" He cut himself off when he noticed Luke in
the back of the speeder, and his eyes narrowed.

"Owen," Obi-Wan said heavily. "Listen for a moment, will you?
I wouldn't have come if it hadn't been an emergency, and Beru knows
it. Luke found out about his father."

Owen's eyes widened, and he seemed to wilt into
himself. "All of it?" he asked
hoarsely. "He knows about—"

"He knows that his father was a Jedi," Obi-Wan cut him off,
and Luke frowned. What had Uncle Owen
been going to say if Obi-Wan hadn't interrupted him? "And he knows that I am too, now, which is enough to be
dangerous. We need to talk."

Owen nodded without saying anything and turned towards the
house. Beru gave the others a
tight-lipped smile and followed him.
And as Luke followed the others into the homestead, he wondered at how
quickly his neat, orderly, boring life seemed to be disappearing into a black
hole.

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